The present invention relates to the field of articles intended for the preparation and the cooking of food and more particularly the cooking surface of these articles in contact with food to be treated.
For many years, great efforts have been developed in order to facilitate the daily preparation of meals. Among the notable progress, coatings containing fluorocarbonated polymers as a non-stick coating in kitchen utensils quickly developed since the end of 1950. Such coatings are universally known since the process presented in the patent FR 1120749 allowed a sure fixing of such coatings on various metals, such as aluminum.
However, such coatings remain fragile and resist scratching poorly. Thus, clever ways were developed in order to mechanically reinforce the layer on its support. Numerous improvement patents describe methods and means making it possible to increase the scratch resistance of such coatings, by acting on the coating and/or the substrate. Despite everything, such coatings remain sensitive to the repeated use of sharpened or pointed metallic materials, such as knives or forks.
In parallel, developments were carried out on mechanically resistant surfaces on which attempts were made to improve the ease of cleaning. Deposits of metal, such as chrome plating on stainless steel, quasi-crystals, or nonmetals (silicates, . . . ) thus appeared. The results remain however disappointing, in particular in comparison with coatings of the PTFE type.
There is also known, from the document FR 2 848 797, a cooking surface composed in major part of metallic zirconium, surface which has a very good hardness, since the layer is nitrided or carburized, presenting satisfactory ease of cleaning but without attaining the ease of cleaning of layers of the PTFE type.